


The End of All Things.

by MichelleAnn



Series: Changes in Fate And Destiny [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 08:20:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3440165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MichelleAnn/pseuds/MichelleAnn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Conclave of Divine Justina brings hope to end the war engulfing Thedas. Acting as ambassador to her Kingdom, Queen Elissa Theirin travels to Haven to give evidence of the good that the Hero of Ferelden, Daylen Amell, has done since being freed of the Circle. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Ostwick wastrel Maxwell Trevelyan finds himself branded with an authority he never expected to have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is from the same AU verse as my DAO fic 'The Battle for Ferelden', which can be found on fanfic. It was previously on here, but I took it down for reasons I can't remember. I will get back onto loading it up. But so you aren't burdened with having to read it - 
> 
> King Alistair was rescued from the Templar order by Calian, made a Prince and married to Elissa Cousland. He becomes King after the Battle of Ostagar.
> 
> Daylen Amell and Kallian Tabris are the two Warden's that saved Ferelden from the Blight. 
> 
> Everyone was recruited by Daylen and Alistair. 
> 
> If any chapters are of particular note to the back story of one of these, I will make a note of it. Other than that, please enjoy.

Elissa Theirin, Queen of Ferelden, sighed as she handed coin over to the young woman who owned the bar. She took it with a smile before moving onto the next person while she grabbed the goblet of wine and tankard of mead. Elissa moved through the high spirited crowd back to the table she shared with her long trusted Captain. As she put his mead down in front of him, she looked around, taking a sip. 

‘They are much livelier that I would have anticipated,’ she remarked, turning to look at Maryn. 

The Captain took a sip of his mead as his eyes travelled around the tavern. ‘Most of these people are just ordinary people involved in the running of the Conclave. Those who are not involved in the talks are wreaking havoc across the Hinterlands.’

Elissa frowned, her lips becoming a thin line on her face. ‘Don’t remind.me. I take you sent word back to Denerim?’

Maryn nodded. ‘From both Redcliffe and when we arrived. His Majesty stipulated quite clearly that he wanted a full report from the area,’ he said taking a sip from his tankard. 

‘Well, let us hope we can diffuse some of it when can speak to both parties at the Conclave,’ replied Elissa as she sat down. 

They passed the time with murmured conversation about observations they made. In the corner, a drunk sat attempting to paw at some women when Elissa caught sight of someone she recognised from a few years ago. Her eyes narrowed on the story telling dwarf who had previous accompanied her husband across the darker regions of Northern Thedas three years earlier. In reply, having seen her, Varric Tethras raised his tankard to her. Maryn frowned but Elissa shook her head as she put her goblet to her lips. 

‘It’s nothing,’ she said with a smile, but she could tell from Maryn’s expression that he far from believed her. 

The Captain had been her confidante for far too long now, having learnt her all her tells from years of watching her as his charge. It occasionally made her uncomfortable as he knew her almost as intimately as Alistair. She sighed, rubbing her forehead as a headache began to blossom in her temples. 

‘Too much wine, already?’ Maryn asked with a smirk. 

Elissa wrinkled her nose as she watched Varric rise from his chair and bid the owner, Flissa, good night. She gave him a cheery wave indicating that he had been here for some time. Elissa had heard the rumours as to the reason he was here. It boiled down to the Champion of Kirkwall. She had rolled her eyes when she had heard. She had never met the Champion, Garret Hawke, but Alistair had remarking upon his return to Denerim that the man was of the same ilk as Daylen Amell. For the life of her, Elissa could not decide if that was a good thing. While she was close to Amell, they shared a strange affinity and the bond created from fighting the Blight would never disperse, she still thought he was brash and prone to heartlessness. 

Hawke had done good things in Kirkwall, but like Amell, like all of them, he had made tough decisions that brought them to this point. Siding with Anders and the mages when the Chantry was destroyed had been akin to kicking a boulder of a tall mountain to result in the landslide everyone was caught up in. Although… she shook the thought away; it was too easy to pinpoint Hawke’s actions as the cause of this, when the actions of Kallian Tabris in Amaranthine preceded those in Kirkwall. Even then, there were events that preceded that. It was a tangled web of cause and effect. 

Varric tipped his head with a wink as he passed their table causing Maryn to frown but before he could get any further, silence erupted over the room as a woman, Flissa, slapped a drunkard in the corner. 

Elissa placed her forearms on the table, shaking her head. She wasn’t armed bar for the dagger she kept in her boot. ‘Maker,’ she muttered. 

‘You ungrateful little…’ he yelled after swabbing his mouth with the back of his sleeve. 

He pushed the table clean off the ground as he went to push Flissa for refusing his advances. But before he could get right into her face, something whizzed through the air, a crossbow bolt, and the drunkard found himself pinned to the back wall amid gasps of surprise. 

‘She’s not interested.’ Varric’s voice rang out over the silence as he stepped forward, tilting his crossbow. ‘But Bianca here is a sucker for drunk, dumb and ugly.’

The tavern roared with laughter as Elissa felt a strange pressure build behind her eyes. She could sense Maryn looking at her in concern. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the man reach down for the dagger stashed in his belt. 

Elissa drew in a breath knowing it could get ugly, but as he raised his hand, Varric let off another shot pinning the thug’s hand to the door he was already backed again. 

‘Take a hint, human,’ he snarled. 

The pressure in her head built to magnanimous proportions. It was like being surrounded by too much magic… 

As Varric stood there, finger on the trigger of his crossbow; as Maryn started to stand up in concern everything went completely still, bathed in erry green light. Then everything exploded, not once, but a second time as a shock wave rippled through the air. She heard her scream of surprise mingle with every one else as Maryn tumbled to the floor. Varric remained on his feet and spun to face the door. Elissa pushed herself to her feet despite the dizziness to stumble to the same doorway Varric occupied. She placed her hands on the door frame as he took a few steps out from the threshold. 

‘By the Maker,’ she whispered as sky was sundered above them. Around the great line that tore through the sky, green balls fell from the skies to the ground. There was no Maker here, if he ever was here. 

Varric, however, shook his head with a deep, discontented sigh. ‘Not again.’


	2. The Lone Survivor

‘You know as well as anyone, this does not make him guilty.’

Elissa Theirin walked quickly to keep pace with Sister Leliana as they walked through the cells of the Haven Chantry. Who had even thought of installing them, Elissa had pondered as she glanced around at the dank walls. At first she thought they might have been the work of the former inhabitants of the town, the Cult of Andraste, but that Chantry building had been torn down, condemned as blasphemous due to the teachings of Kolgrim and his cult. These dungeons were new. The implication didn’t sit well.

‘The entire mountaintop was levelled, Your Majesty,’ replied Leliana, ‘the Divine dead, what other conclusion are we to draw?’

Elissa scowled deeply with the desire to throw Leliana against the wall. ‘You think a sole man, with no magical abilities would even be capable of this? I spoke with his retinue from Ostwick. Men who spend their lives whoring in taverns and spending too much coin behind their parents back do not sunder the sky.’ She stopped walking with a sigh, hands on her hips looking at Leliana. ‘I know what the Divine meant to you, but this man is no more your culprit than I.’

Leliana turned to look at Elissa. ‘You don’t know that,’ she replied, ‘you are not all knowing.’

The Left Hand of the Divine turned on her heel and as she walked away, Elissa dropped her hands to watch her before she followed. She wanted to see this man for herself now he was awake. He had lain close to death as chaos reigned around them; demons rained down as Templars and Mages fled down the mountainside. Elissa’s weapons hadn’t seen so much action since the days of the Blight. Not that she would admit it, but she was tired, drained from the exertion and horror she felt for the situation at hand. 

They walked in silences bar for the metal against stone clink of their armoured boots until they rounded a corner lined with Inquisition soldiers. They stood to attention for Leliana as they walked down the corridor towards Leliana’s opposite number, Cassandra Pentaghast. The Seeker eyed Elissa suspiciously. Elissa put her hands behind her back as she continued her stride towards the prison cell. 

‘What is she doing here?’ Cassandra demanded. ‘This is Inquisition business.’

‘On Ferelden soil,’ said Elissa. ‘As such, it is my sovereign right to see the prisoner.’

Cassandra frowned at Elissa’s words before she turned her attention back to Leliana. ‘He has awoken but according to Solas, he appears to remember nothing.’

Leliana crossed her arms over her chest. ‘That is convenient.’

Elissa bit her lip to stop herself from speaking out. In the chaos that had reigned, she had to wonder if she were the only person with any sense left on this mountain. Everyone called Maxwell Trevelyan a murdered, bar her. She wasn’t so sure in that assumption as she attempted to approach the subject with an open mind. If anything, it was the appearance of the apostate, Solas, which had her thinking. His arrival, combined with his source of knowledge, was convenient given the circumstances yet everyone had their eyes on Trevelyan. She had expressed her concerns to Maryn but he was no political minded man and she longed for the some clear headed reasoning on the matter. In the circumstances, Daylen Amell would have been able to cut through the situation with cold precision.

Cassandra pushed the door to the cell open and strode in, his fists clenched as the guards pointing their swords at Trevelyan sheathed them. As Cassandra circled him, Leliana walked in and Elissa followed hands behind her back to stand in the doorway. Trevalyan was on his knees, head bowed with his hands cuffed to separate them. He had dark hair which was long enough to pull into a small tail and wore a green leather jerkin, metal padrones with a neck chief. 

The Seeker leaned toward him. ‘Tell me why we should kill you now,’ she demanded. ‘The Conclave is destroyed, everyone who attended is dead. Accept for you.’

Trevelyan looked up at the two women, having not noticed Elissa. ‘You think I am responsible?’ he asked. 

As quick as a dark, Cassandra reached down and grabbed Trevelyan’s shackled hand and held it up to reveal a strange mark branded into his palm. ‘Explain this,’ she said as it began glowing the same eerie shade of green as the breach in the sky.

Trevelyan groaned in pain, his eyes wide as he stared at the mark. Cassandra threw his hand back down, the sound of metal echoing around the room. Elissa gritted her teeth. She knew of Cassandra’s methods, Varric had been very vocal on that point over the past few days. 

‘I can’t,’ said Trevelyan, lifting his hand to look at the mark again. 

In the pale green light, Elissa could see that he wasn’t a young man, wrinkles covered his face along with a few deep ridged scars across his cheek and jaw. There were no new injuries though. Elissa tilted her head in contemplation. 

Cassandra’s hand went to her sword. ‘What do you mean you can’t?’ she demanded. 

‘I don’t know what this is,’ he protested, ‘or how it got there.’

His words were enough to enrage the Seeker, she flew forward, grapping his lapels. Elissa pushed herself from the door as Cassandra declared Trevelyan was lying. Leliana, however, grabbed her companion, pushing her away from their prisoner. The spy glanced at Elissa. Perhaps some of what she said had sunk in after all. 

‘We need him,’ she said in a low voice. 

As she stepped away from the Seeker, silence fell in the cell. Trevelyan was looking at the floor with a strange look in his eyes. He looked sad, slightly broken and Elissa shook her head. This man was no mass murderer.

‘I can’t believe it,’ he whispered, ‘all those people, dead.’

Leliana now stood before him. ‘Do you remember what happened? How this began?’

\---…---

Trevelyan glowered at his captors at the request made by the Orlesian woman who had pulled Cassandra off him. The two questioners circled him like vultures, awaiting for whatever meat was left on the bone they had been given. They did not realise there was nothing to take. He knew nothing of what had happened nor why he was here. By rights, he was the one who should be asking the questions. 

He looked passed the two to see a third woman stood in the door way. Unlike his two questioners, she had remained silent, watching the proceedings with her eyes flickering suspiciously around the room. Cast half in shadow, he could make out dark red hair, the glint of green in her eyes and evidence of a scar across her cheek. 

But he forced himself to focus on the question he had been asked. He had wondered for hours what had happened for him to wind up in a cell, a green mark etched on his hand. It certainly wasn’t the result of offending someone in a tavern. Besides, the last thing he remembered was being told to take a message to the great chamber because that was all he was good for in his hung over state. 

Then another memory nudged its way in from the deeper recesses of his mind. Creatures… spindly spiders that crawled towards him, and him... ‘I remember running. Things were chasing me and then…’ he struggled to capture the memories that fell through his hands like grains of sand in an hour glass. ‘A woman.’

The Orlesian raised her eyebrows and looked at her companion, then at the silent woman behind them. She responded with an inscrutable look before his questioner look at him. ‘A woman?’ she repeated. 

The memory became clearer. ‘She reached out to me.’ He could see her in his minds eye. A womanly spirit bathed in light holding out her hand to him. ‘And then…’ he trailed off. It was… gone.

Cassandra shook her head in disbelieve the turned to the Orlesian woman. ‘Go to the forward camp, Leliana. I will take him to the rift.’

Leliana nodded, took one last look at him and strode up to the doorway. She didn’t stop to talk to the silent woman but they exchanged a long, significant look before she left. The silent woman remained and turned her attention back to Cassandra. As Cassandra undid his shackles he looked between her and the so far silent red head. 

‘What did happen?’

Cassandra paused, looking in his eyes. He could see pain and hurt there, anger, resentment. Then from behind her the mysterious observer finally spoke. 

‘It will be easier to show you,’ she said. 

Her accent was a warm Northern Ferelden that had been softened by long exposure to other accents. He had expected something harsher. Cassandra turned to look at her then nodded her agreement. 

Bound by rope, Cassandra lead him out through the Chantry into the Town of Haven. It was impossible to miss what they wanted him to see. The sky had been ripped around by a huge swath of green, mysterious light with debris falling from it. 

‘We call it the Breach,’ Cassandra explained. ‘It’s a massive rift into the world of demons that grows larger with each passing hour. It’s not the only such rift, just the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the Conclave.’

Trevelyan looked between his two captors. They both carried an expression of huge sadness in their eyes as the gazed up to the devastation. His unnamed captor sighed as she crossed her arms over her chest, the light of the veil reflected in her green eyes. 

‘An explosion can do that?’ Trevelyan asked. 

‘This one did,’ said Cassandra sadly, looking back at him. ‘Unless we act, the Breach may grow until it swallows the world.’

He looked at the horror in the sky. As he did, tingling began to muster in his hand, he looked down at the green brand and it sparked to life. He cried out, going to his knee. He stared at it in horror for moment before he looked between the two women. The red head was watching him with concern, but Cassandra seemed unmoved. 

‘You still think I did this?’ he asked her. ‘To myself?’

Cassandra Pentaghast’s verdict was damning.


End file.
